posted at 1:30 pm on November 12, 2009 by Ed Morrissey

It’s very fair to send people who disregard the federal mandate to buy health insurance to prison, Nancy Pelosi says, because otherwise they’ll assault citizens … with a bill for medical services … or something. Apparently, the occasionally unhealthy have become such a security risk that we need to imprison them for opting to pay their own way. Infidels Are Cool has the key exchange::

Stone: Do you think it’s fair to send people to jail who don’t buy health insurance?

Pelosi: … The legislation is very fair in this respect.

Of course, the other option is to make people responsible for paying their own bills. Nothing requires us to pick up the tab for people in clinics or emergency rooms, especially those who can afford to pay their way. This is the point that Pelosi and her statist colleagues seem to forget. People who choose not to buy coverage even though they could afford it assume the risk of paying out of pocket — and that may be a very rational choice, as it is most unlikely that those people would use $3,000 a month in medical services, which is what their insurance would cost now.

If nothing else, it reminds us that statism always comes with handcuffs, and those cuffs always get explained by either fairness or patriotism. In this case, Pelosi uses both.

Comments

We know the gutter and we know the stink of the street
For too long now we have pressed through this festering heat
All you tyrants who tower above us
You who gave us the smack of your rod
Soon now we will give you the gutter
We will give you the judgment of God!

These will be glorious days
Come gather the bloody bouquets!
Soon now they will gaze on our Goddess of Justice
With her shimmering, glimmering blade
As she kisses these tyrants she will sing them a last serenade

The world may be ugly, but each man must do what he must
Your time is coming, sick tyrants, in a year you will be dust
Now come let our Lady of Justice possess you
In her breathtaking, hair-raising bed
She will tingle your spines
As she captures your hearts and your heads!

I’ve been mulling it over. I now believe Pelosi is on our side. Reasoning: I imagine at least 3/4, or more, of Americans would be unwilling, and/or unable to pay their premiums under the guidelines of this preposterous piece of legislation. She knows it and the Senate knows it. Therefore, it was included deliberately to sabotage the whole shebang.

I’ve been mulling it over. I now believe Pelosi is on our side. Reasoning: I imagine at least 3/4, or more, of Americans would be unwilling, and/or unable to pay their premiums under the guidelines of this preposterous piece of legislation. She knows it and the Senate knows it. Therefore, it was included deliberately to sabotage the whole shebang.

Calm down — these “prison sentences” are a myth: The only people who’d face penalties are those who have plenty of money to buy insurance, but choose not to, says Karina Newton at Speaker Pelosi’s official blog.

This “reasoning” makes absolutely no sense. If these “people have plenty of money to buy insurance,” but don’t, then they have “plenty of money” to pay out of pocket for their own health-care bills. Why empower the government to step in to be the bill collector for health care providers? Aren’t those who refuse to pay bills guilty of theft of services?

I don’t think they’ll put anybody in jail, just convict of a felony, suspend sentence, and throw on a quarter million dollars in fines.

I’m still down. I’ll start by leaving that section of the return blank. When I get called on it, I’ll cite a 5th Amendment freedom from self-incrimination, since they’re punishing people based on their answers. The fight over that ought to last beyond a year, when I’ll submit a second, parsed return.

BTW now might be a good time for the GOP to promise a GOP majority in Congress will destroy any such penalty on Day One.

The years have not been good to Nancy, either physically or mentally. The look in her eyes is vacant, ( crazy ), she stumbles and searches for words and answers and truly seems lost. Once this jail time quote goes viral her bill is toast as well as she….. ” This way Madame Speaker, don’t mind those guys in the white coats, their your friends “.

The years have not been good to Nancy, either physically or mentally. The look in her eyes is vacant, ( crazy ), she stumbles and searches for words and answers and truly seems lost. Once this jail time quote goes viral her bill is toast as well as she….. ” This way Madame Speaker, don’t mind those guys in the white coats, their your friends “.

I started out being outraged. Then my contrary self spoke up. Back when I was trying to survive on under $5000 a year and making too much money to qualify for Medicaid but too little to pay for anything else, I might have said “Go ahead: throw me in jail.”
Is this irresponsibility, or civil disobedience?

Like I said, if it comes to pass. The operative word would be “heading”.

As an Okie, I’d demand a trial by jury of my peers. D’ya reckon my fellow Okies would throw the book at me?

If they did, it’d be one productive self-employed taken out of commission, i.e. tax-payer. Get enough 10th Amendment-loving Okies ready to go to trial and watch how fast the Feds drop it. Not to mention that by the time it came to trial, odds would be that the politics would swing back.

Why this fulfills one of my famous top 30 predictions for obama and the democraps..

Jailing american citizens for the CRIME OF
Disobeying peloczari or Obamacommie..

Sorry i have a slight problem with
Democrats and the leeches in congress
Jailing veterans and americans in general
But calling the Islamic terrorist who MURDERED 13 Soldiers and an unborn child (just mentally challenged)…

So accoring to the democrats , obama and of course nepalitoan the veterans and all americans who oppose the democrats evil plans to destroy our nation
must be jailed for FAILURE TO COMPLY???
BULLSHIT

Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Tennessee, and South Carolina are the fattest states – unfortunately also all Red States…..this will play a roll in something, it’s too late at night for me to figure the anti-fat liberal crusade just yet…but I will.

However I did note another interesting fact. If you cross reference the states with the highest % of uninsured with state political association…all of the states with the highest level of uninsured (Texas, New Mexico, Florida, Arizona, and Mississippi) are either red or purple aside from New Mexico. Seems like a crafty liberal witch hunt.

Let’s just say that Nancy would love to put the 5 Million plus uninsured Republicans in Texas in prison……

I’d also like to point out that there are more guns in Texas than any other state….so this could get interesting.

I don’t know if any of that made sense to anyone but me, it’s 3am and I wanna go to bed.

I swear or think that Americans had more freedom before the Revolution. King George the Third was not even this oppressive or arrogant. This fool woman and her toadies are indeed very unbearable. I am so upset with her remarks I can’t even come up with a decent post.

So all the recent and soon to be college graduates, who have enormous student loans to pay off but can only get a job at Banana Republic are going to be required to purchase health insurance or face fines and going to jail?

If it weren’t for an excellent community college I’d be joining everyone else for a massive debt load for what amounted to a fancy piece of paper and another line on my resume when I went begging for another wage-slave ‘job’.

I’ve noticed my father has stopped bugging me to transfer to a traditional four-year institution, finally.

But you wouldn’t want it.
A friend of my dad’s went to federal prison for a few years & was soon diagnosed with cancer in there.
He almost died trying to get it properly treated.
There’s a lot of medical horror stories from prison.

I’ve noticed my father has stopped bugging me to transfer to a traditional four-year institution, finally.

Dark-Star on November 13, 2009 at 12:08 PM

There are many excellent community colleges around the country.
Bellevue CC in Bellevue, WA is one of them.
I went on to UWYO at Laramie from there & was well prepared.
But many CCs don’t offer hard science majors.

If you get tossed in jail for refusing to buy into this government insurance scam, how can you ever get out?

Seems like this would quickly become a permanent condition.

There you are, the judge asks why you do not buy insurance, you say ‘I refuse to buy it’, he says 5 years.

At any probation hearing, he asks you if you are rehabilitated, you say no, ‘I am not buying insurance’ and he sends you back to jail.

Then, the day you are released, they come and arrest you for not having insurance and you say ‘ I will never buy it’. Back to the judge and there goes another 5 years. This becomes an endless incarceration.

So, how many people need to do this on day one for the entire system to collapse? Hundreds, thousands, millions, or just a few on national tv?

Speaker Pelosi has spoken out too much lately. However, among her most outlandish speech is this one, that supports punishing U.S. for not complying with her ideas that only government can cure what ails U.S.